


Made Right

by YesBothWays



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: Charlotte's viewpoint, F/F, F/M, love scene between Charlotte and Isabella, memories Charlotte has of being with Daniel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 00:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17777369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: "The sight of a lady coming up the stairs behind me, when I reached the top and turned to hold the candle for her too see the steps might have made me laugh on any other day.  Tonight, the world felt broken open.  All was shown to be askew, disturbed by jagged edges left after violence.  And I was not laughing.  I was not evening smiling.  Perhaps there was only one thing I might set right tonight.  I meant to do so and well."





	Made Right

**Author's Note:**

> A tumblr anon said I should write for Harlots, and I said I did not think I could. Then I realized just how bad I want more Charlotte Wells. I've never stanned a character harder. Her inner world is complex. She is smart beyond articulating, and she is a survivor filled with strength and solidarity. Her sexuality is stunningly powerful and complex. Once I realized I could write this story from Charlotte's perspective, I had to try. Charlotte Wells is a bicon beyond what I hoped to find in this world and probably the first wlw who responds to men and women in ways I find entirely identifiable. At first, I had thought that the satisfaction that mattered most to me during their night together was Isabella's, because she had only experienced violence and been subjugated to the desires of a sadist who used her own longing to cause her pain. Then I realized that what mattered to me the most was Charlotte's satisfaction, because Isabella's satisfaction is precisely what she wanted, knowing what it would mean. We stan a queen. 
> 
> *Trigger warning* for implications of past experiences of rape and abuse. 
> 
> Also, because this is told from Charlotte's perspective, this also tells the story of the night she spent with Daniel Marney. Maybe that's two ships for the price of one to add a layer of meaning, or maybe that's a hetero disruption of a femslash love scene for you to skim. You decide.

            The sight of a lady coming up the stairs behind me, when I reached the top and turned to hold the candle for her too see the steps might have made me laugh on any other day. Tonight, the world felt broken open. All was shown to be askew, disturbed by jagged edges left after violence. And I was not laughing. I was not evening smiling. Perhaps there was only one thing I might set right tonight. I meant to do so and well.

            I took us to a room, and let her go in before me. I followed close behind her and closed the door. She stopped to consider the shut door, dwelling on it. I lingered, thinking she might be changing her mind. I gave her a moment to decide, waiting.

            "Is there not any lock?" Lady Isabella said, seeming disturbed by the idea.

            "What for? Why would you need a lock on an inside door? This isn't a jail," I said. "No one will disturb us." I kept my next thought in that if they did, they would assume I was working and leave us to it. She could work that bit through on her own.

            I lit all the candles in the room making as much light as I could for us to see one another by. A fire was set in the fireplace, and I lit a long wick and bent down to set fire to the straw and kindling along the bottom. I took off my rings and washed my hands in a basin. Lady Isabella crossed the room to stand closer to where I was.  

            "You have made a fire?" Lady Isabella asked. The flames were catching, as I dried my hands. The fire was well laid, and I could see already it would take fully. I made a bit of a smile, looking at her, wondering why she would imagine I would ever try and bed her in a cold room.

            "I mean to make ready for bed," I told her. "I shall be far too occupied to do so later." I made a wry grin, and she smiled and turned her face down, doubtless abashed. "Unless you plan to bed me and leave me to spend the rest of the night alone." The jest was pointed, and she responded at once, goaded.

            "I would never – " she began to say, defending herself, and I could not keep from laughing and giving up my joke to her. She quieted and smiled herself, looking me over now.

            "Well, given you mean to be kind with me after, I guess I am safe with you then," I said. She considered my face and the nature of my smile, understanding precisely what I meant by saying this, which was that she was safe with me. We were safe here together.

            The relief I felt being in this house made me feel light and happy. Strange as her presence was, I liked having Lady Isabella here with me in my own world. From what I had tasted of hers, it seemed every morning they brought out a fresh, truffled, and sugared-over slice of hell. In truth, I also liked having her to myself. She followed me up here, and I had to only hope she would not lose her nerve. Time would have to tell that part.

            I went and poured us both a drink of wine and handed her a glass. I toasted her quietly and took a drought. She considered me, curious still, I thought because I did not start us off right away.   "I mean to take my time," I told her, tipping my glass at her, openly addressing her private thoughts. She understood the full insinuation held in my words. She said nothing, looked down, and swallowed. She had another drink.

            After a bit of time passed, I held out a hand for her glass, which she gave to me. I put both aside. I reached for her hands, and she held to mine. I took off her rings, carefully working each one over her fingers, and sat them aside. She had told me before she was not used to being touched, and I could feel the truth in those words now. Her hands were timid in my own, even if I kept catching in subtle ways they moved how she was relishing the feel of my hands on hers.  

            I brought her to sit on a cushioned seat close to the fireplace and made to undress her. First, I took away her necklace, and I touched the skin I had made bare and leaned down to kiss where my hands had been. She let her head tilt and placed her hands over my own at the press of my mouth. The pins of her wig were easy enough to find, and I took this away next. The hair underneath was loosely tied, and I let it down. She found that a bit unsettling, I thought. As I stepped away to find a stand and put the wig far from the fireplace, she kept running her hands through her hair. I stopped and took off my own wig, pushing my hands through my hair, as well. I took off my jewelry thinking that would help her feel less strange about being seen the way she was.

            When I returned to her, I leaned down and pushed my own hands through her hair once, while I watched her face. Her hair was quite straight and delicate in my hands. The firelight shone upon the dark color of it, quite beautiful. I kissed her mouth and then her throat making my way around to the back of her neck.

            I unclasped her gown, careful not to bend the clasps, and drew the gown down off her shoulders. Her clothes were very fine, but my focus was all on what was underneath, and I had to remind myself to take proper care. I bent down to kiss all of the newly exposed skin as I went to satisfy myself as much as her, my mouth pressing soft against her, making the skin hot. She turned over her shoulder to let me kiss her mouth, and I reached around to draw her gown down in the front as I did. She stood and helped me take the gown off. I held her hand to steady her, as she stepped out of the gown, and she let me take away her petticoats and hoops.

            The entire line of her was all changed. She felt taller, now that she was narrow as a man, and I stood before her, realizing she was as tall as a man. That gave me a thrill, and I stood smiling. She could tell I was delighting in her in some way, and she looked surprised, watching my face. I felt it almost a shame when I sat her down once more, stealing her height and standing above her. I came round behind her and untied the laces on her corset and pulled the top ones free, then I pulled the ones nearer the bottom apart. She raised her arms and helped me take it away, leaving only her shift between me and her skin. I would have taken this off her, as well, but the way she held her body made me certain she did want me to strip her down all the way. So I let it be.  

            "You will have to help me," I told her.

            I wanted to kneel down in front of her to take away her stays and stockings, but I could not so dressed. I started to unclasp my gown, and she turned and saw what I was doing, and she stood and helped me. Her hands eventually faltered, and I kept right on going, putting one leg up on the seat at a time and standing very close to her, until I stood before her naked. Her lips were parted in astonishment, and she kept looking away from the sight and back. I put my arms around her neck and brought her body against mine with very little between the two of us now.

            We kissed several times, holding each one long. I sat her down one last time, and this time, I knelt down right in front of her. I reached under the hem of her shift to untie her stays, and I took away her shoes and stockings, leaving her legs quite bare. Her eyes were everywhere except on myself, and I put my hand under her chin to get her to look up at my face. We leaned in near one another and kissed with exceeding tenderness, and I took her hands and brought them around myself. She pulled me in close. Her hands traced over my shoulders, as if to feel their precise shape.

            "I do not know the right way to honor your beauty," she told me. That nearly made me laugh. She did not want to look at me, because she did not know the proper way to respond. The gravity in her voice affected me, however, keeping me from laughing. Instead, I considered well what I should say to her.

            "Will you look upon me now as I am, no longer shielded by finery, as something other than a piece of property to be had?" I asked her. She blinked with astonishment at the severity in my tone, when I asked this. She recognized the importance of her answer and held me close to her with great sincerity.

            "No. I will see you as Charlotte Wells – the lover who stands above all finery, no matter its worth, making the wealthy recognize how lowly they are in truth. No one could ever afford a price high enough to own you, Charlotte. All the world knows this. Some hate you for it. Others love you for it," she said. I tried to laugh at her answer that strangely stung my heart.

            "And after you have had me, will you believe that you have cheapened me or made me more valuable?" I asked her, wondering why I would speak to her in such earnest. What was she to say to me?  

            "I hope only to leave you with a memory worth having," she told me. "I am afraid I do not know how to do so."

            "If you can take any pleasure in me and not imagine yourself standing over me because you have done so, then you will have honored what I truly am more than near anyone else," I told her. That was far more truth than I wished to hear myself speak. But she had given me her truth tonight, and now I was giving her my own in just return. She looked closely at my expression, the backs of her fingers running over my face. Her eyes moved away, then came back to me slowly.

            "The mere thought that Charlotte Wells, the most desirable lover in all of London, would have me follow her to a bed and imagine I felt anything other than mistaken for more than I am astounds me," she said.

            "I can feel what you are," I said, coming to the end of my words with every intent of allowing my actions to convey what I could never find language to say, "Soon, you shall feel it, as well."

            My mouth came to hers, and my hands came to hold her body, running up her sides, feeling the shape and the warmth of her through the thin fabric. Her back arched under my hands. I untied the shift and drew the fabric to the edges of her shoulders, leaving it barely hanging on her. When I made to kiss her throat, she let me, holding onto me and tipping her head back. I made my way over her collarbones and slipped my tongue over the hollow at the base of her throat. Her lips were parted, when I leaned back to see her face.

            As my hands worked their way up over her sides, she held onto my wrists. I took her breasts into my hands and ran my thumbs across. Her breath stopped at first. I held her in a kiss as I touched her. When I could feel the tips clear under my fingers, I gently slipped the shift down from her shoulders and dipped my head low so I could kiss her breasts. I stayed for a long time, moving from one side to the other. She was quiet, but I could feel her – the way she held her body, the way she drew in her breath – so I knew what affect I had on her. She took my face in her hands, swaying in her seat and brought me up to kiss with her more.

            Our hands were held between us, and soon I stood and brought her up with me. I went to the bed and turned down the covers, pushing them down out of our way. She climbed into the bed, and I came in after her, letting her get a good look at my body, since she was looking now.   She reached a hand out to touch me, and I could tell the way she longed for me. That set a heat spilling all through me and put a smile on my lips. If she wanted me, then she would have me.

            And so I reached out and took her by the legs, drawing her to me. My hands moved to her hips, pulling her in close. She made a slight sound and leaned back on her hands. Her mouth was soft, when I bent down to kiss her harder than I had before. She could hardly breath, and my hand found the edge of her shift and slipped underneath. I held her thigh, just above her knee, running my hand up very slow, as we kissed. She was weak in my hands, her breath shallow, overcome by her own desire, I thought. My hand worked its way up while we kissed, making her wait only so I could feel her sink even deeper into her longing.

            "Charlotte," she said, speaking my name for the first time. Her voice came as if she were out of breath and on the edge of breaking. I thought I had her, and the idea brought a familiar satisfaction rushing through me. She was all weak and falling apart in my hands, and I thought, wait until I really get going, cause then I would be sure and wreck her, in the best possible way. I let my hand move up her thigh, making my intent clear, wanting to build her anticipation to a pitch that would heighten the sensation of my touch and make her melt when she finally felt my hand. My lips ran over her throat, and she hid her face against my neck.

            "Yes?" I said, trying to coax her to speak, to ask me for what I would so willingly give. She was so quiet. I wasn't used to anyone being this quiet, and I was so eager for her voice to come that I nearly held my breath. She spoke even softer than before, such that I turned my head instinctively to bring my ear closer to her mouth.

            "Do not hurt me," she managed to say, and then even weaker, she begged of me, "Please."

            My shock could not have been greater on hearing her say these words. I leaned up at once, realizing that I must have been reading her all wrong. "You are afraid of me, " I said looking at her, astonishment no doubt vivid in my expression. Still very much aware of how she felt in my hands, I realized her body had gone weak not with surrender to desire but from being quite submerged in fear. The expression on my face had captured all of her attention. I spoke quickly, not knowing what I would say to her. "I would never harm you."

            She considered me so closely that her hand came to touch my face. She had enough time to see that I was in earnest before I gathered my thoughts to say more with composure now, getting my mind around how she might have mistaken me so utterly: "I could never take my own pleasure from what caused you pain. Your pleasure is my very own – one and the same." She was listening, and I could see she was profoundly moved at my words. My chest ached imagining how little trust she had in me before, but that was not because of me or because of her. That was something else besides. I knew precisely what it was. That was the mark of cruelty that left its imprint upon her mind. She had been taking in violence for so long, her body braced for it – feeling the dread of pain where the anticipation of pleasure should have been. She did not even think to fight, and that struck me right through with a pain. She should have thrown me out of bed the moment she suspected I might do her any wrong. I placed my hands on the sides of her neck and said to her, slow and deliberate, my own voice becoming soft, " I will never hurt you. I will be gentle with you. I promise."

            She looked at my eyes as I spoke, glancing down at my mouth. We were quiet for a long moment and still, then her fingertips shifted to brush across my lips. My hand came to hers, and I turned to kiss her palm and then to softly draw the tips of her fingers between my lips to brush them with my tongue. Her hand in my own was trembling, and I put my hands to her body and felt the same running all through.

            "You are shaking," I said.

            At that, I gathered her close and got my arms all the way around to hold her tight against myself. I could feel now how she was shaking as if she had been halfway to frozen to death and then was brought in and placed in the face of a roaring fire. I kept my arms tight around her, bracing her body right against my own. My face was tipped up that we might kiss, if she was willing. And we did, with a passion that belied that I had misread her before. She kissed me with so many long, slow, and deep kisses, I found I could hardly get room enough in my mind to remember to let go of her. I never did until I felt her already grown steady, all the shaking gone, as difficult to remark in the going as when it had come on.

            When I let her go, and we shifted a little ways apart, I realized she might not have known what I had meant to do before in touching her, given that no one had ever touched her for her own sake in her life. I stopped to kiss her again – starting at her mouth and making my way down to her throat and over both her breasts – to remind her precisely what my touch felt like. I rose up and considered her face, finding her eyes heavy.

            "Here. Let me touch you," I said. She only watched me closely. I made the wetness to pool in my mouth and dipped the tips of two of my fingers into it, then I brought my hand between her legs – swift and yet gentle, so as not to build tension around the act and make it seem threatening. Her legs were held closer together than before, and I touched her carefully, moving my way over her to feel out the precise shape of her.

            The way she felt upon my hand captured all my focus. I was expecting to find her not ready and to try and help her get there, and instead I found her already quite sensitive and swelled. She was wet so that I simply moved my hand a bit and made her wet all over. I found it a relief – to my own ego at my trade if nothing more – that I had not read her so wrongly before. Only some other presence that had loomed over her life for so long had moved between her and myself when I could not see and what's more had come between her and her pleasure. I had made my way past the phantom, that would-be thief now. And it was precisely her pleasure I would be.

            Even my slightest touches sent obvious waves coursing through her body that I could tell went right down to the quick. Anyone else, I thought, in this state would have been begging me to press into her. But she was not anybody else, and I made myself keep restrained. I slipped my fingers along her, making her back stiffen as she gasped in breaths of air. I kept it soft, not teasing her, but not forcing the pleasure to rise up hard and come spilling out of her, as I might have.

            Maybe it was that I kept it slow, and maybe it was something more. The feel of her washed over me with profound force like stepping too far out into the river and meeting a movement of water heavier than one could stand in. The swell of her rising pleasure lifted me and carried me right off. Her body rubbed against my hand and felt the way that good, red wine feels in the mouth with that same delicious velvet and heat and a sharp spice. I could have fancied indeed that touching her was making me drunk, as if I were drawing up the very essence of wine into myself through my hand. What's more, her response was impossible to mistake, the sensations I made rising up through her body, and the intensity of the pleasure she found at my touch was sheer beauty and, I will admit, quite gratifying to the pride I took in my work. I would not chase it. I did not want to overstep as I had done before.   Instead, I held us both there, making us drunk, until we were holding to one another to keep from swaying, as if anymore and both of us might fall over onto the bed.

            Her mouth lingered on my own, so I brushed my tongue over her lips. When I felt her lips just part, I took the chance to open them with my own and brush my tongue across hers. The sensation made us both rise and hold one another closer. I heard the slightest sound from her. I mirrored the same gentle coaxing with my fingers between her legs and my tongue upon her mouth to entreat her to open to me. As I first made to touch inside her body, I felt her body tense even inside. So I stayed slow, working my way into her by degrees, waiting until she was willing. Perhaps I was only causing an intense spike of pleasurable sensation, but I was worried she was bracing for pain. I made sure I was soft and careful as I created that first gentle pressure inside of her where I knew my fingers would work best and found how to take up that first rhythm that would have her opening up to my touch rather than wanting to pull away. When I finally pressed harder, another faint sound escaped her, and then another, the slightest slip of sound every time. I turned my head to listen more closely, wanting to hear her, savoring every sound of pleasure that overflowed her body and spilled from her lips, to pour into me. I felt as if the sound went right to my heart, so that she was filling me up. It seemed my own heart might drown right inside my chest.

            My voice was the one that finally came in a distinct sound of purest pleasure, taking me by surprise. I kept a hand on her back, bracing her, and I found myself wanting to both press into her and also to slide my hand over her, which I could not truly manage to do at the same time with my one hand. Finally, I determined to lean down and let my tongue run just once over her pearl. I knew she might be shocked. She might think it lewd. Still I thought if I could taste her just once that would satisfy me in some way. I made certain my movements were slow enough not to take her by surprise, and I lingered with my mouth touching her thighs. She held onto me tight, but her legs slipped open to allow me to find the place I wanted. The one soft, slow lick that I made at the very first made her voice finally sound in a moan. That made it hard to move away. I did, though, practically shaking myself.

            The taste of her was sweet. I might have known she would be so sweet if I had thought. Now that I had tasted her, I knew and felt more sure of myself in the knowing. When I leaned up, she drew me forward into an embrace. We kissed, and I thought sure that I could bring out that sound more and more, a hundred times from her, if she would let me. I had to try one more time to find out if she wanted this, and so I dipped my head into her lap a second time. She allowed me once more. This time, I sucked softly, and I stayed as long as one of our kisses might have gone on. She said my name once more, hardly able to breath it out. This reminded me of before, so I thought I should stop. I came to take her into my arms and kiss her in both passion and a slight apology for overstepping a second time.  

            She kissed me without any timidity now, pulling me to her. She was heavy in my arms, and I recognized then that I had her now, as I had imagined I had her before. She was holding me hard to her, unafraid and wanting more. I could not help but grin. This was what I wanted most, to bring her fully under my sway. I had known that I could, and yet somehow I thought she simply could not find the surrender she had reached that I could now feel in her body. I thought she had been hurt too much in her past, and I doubted my own power to contest what she had known before me. Looking over her, feeling her now, I did not doubt. People did not call me the most desirable lover in London without good reason. I made certain that I was always better than the word that spread about what a time I was in bed. The confidence I felt in my trade rose through me now.

            So I laid her back in the bed and brought my body over hers, pressing my hands fully into her own. I kissed all over her, making her wait only to drive her passion to a higher pitch before I would bring her complete satisfaction. When finally I pressed my fingers deep into her and my tongue lavished over her petals and her pearl, her back arched, her shoulders rising off the bed. I had my free hand on her breast, and although I kept gentle, I would not relent. Soon, I had her entirely. Her hands held onto my shoulders, moved to the back of my neck, eventually came to grasp gently at the roots of my hair along my neckline. I urged her legs open, until eventually I pressed at the backs of her thighs to hold her fully open in a manner I myself would have feared for her to imagine before she came into this bed with me.

            When her thighs started to shake, I braced them against my shoulders and with my hands. Her body quaked, and I placed my hands on her stomach to better feel the way. This was not fear this time – this was pleasure. I knew it for what it was, and yet it rose from some place deep inside her, some hidden place I was not even certain existed in the lovers I had before. She was simply more – more than they were. And she let me in. She had drawn me close to her in a manner I had hardly ever known with a lover. And the satisfaction that raked through her, clawing quite sweetly down into the depths of her being and dragging her up and into my arms, became my own. What she gave up to me, I hardly had the depths to take into myself. My heart ached, as if it were trying enlarge to take in all of her.

            She was vast, and for one night, I got to hold her in my arms, an entire world fallen into my embrace. I may not have been humbled in my self-perception as a master of my trade, but I found myself humbled all the same in some way even I would have said must be sacred. I lifted up after to consider her, watching my fingertips grazing over her exposed thighs, touching the warm place between her bared breasts. I did not give myself long to linger, before I righted her shift, bringing the hem down and the shoulders back up. I twirled the stays around one another but left them still untied.

            Her hands were less confident on my body and far from grasping as they had before. I missed the passion in how she had touched me even already. Maybe she could tell somehow. She brought her hands to my back and dragged me up and down over her. Her hands held me tight in the embrace and moved over my back. She held me close, and I could feel myself trembling. I had to admit to myself that I was sorry that we were through. That I felt subject to my own lust in the sway of her made me feel a fool, and I nearly had to laugh at myself. I wanted to kiss her, but then I became self-conscious. I leaned down and kissed her neck, and then I turned over and climbed out of the bed.

            I got a long drink of wine mixed with water and let it linger on my lips and my tongue. I found a cloth and spilled a bit onto it to rub over my mouth. I brought this with me when I came back, thinking to wash between her legs, before we righted the bedding and made to get to sleep. I brought a drink to her, as well. She was sitting up, and she pushed her hair behind her ears. She took the glass, had a drink, and moved to place it on a bedside table. I could see her shyness now, a part of her character, one she forced back much of the time, hiding her vulnerability. I had to smile at the clear sight of her.

            Climbing back into the bed, I stretched out over the width of it before her and rested on my elbows. She looked over my body now, as she would not before. I could not help but grinning. She moved over to me on the bed and brought her hands to my face. She bent all the way down and kissed me with those same long and tender kisses, and I could feel my own breath catching in my chest.

            My body felt both spent and also in a heightened pitch of desire at the same time. I was not sure what all I felt. The back of her hand trailed over my body with a light, dancing sensation, and my hand came to stop her, as I shifted all my weight onto one elbow. I could have almost begged her not to tease in that moment. She held onto my hand that caught her own, bringing it to press to her chest.

            When she sat up, she let go of my hand, and I let my arm down to hold myself up once more. She leaned down then to kiss over my heart and let her mouth linger. I struggled to hold myself up to her and not to sink down into the bed.

            "I would touch you now," she told me. She sat up once more and looked at my eyes. I waited a moment, and she waited, as well. I had to grin.

            "Are you asking my permission?" I said, still smiling up at her.

            "I am," she told me with gravity.

            "You may," I said with a cock of my head and still with a grin, wondering what she would do and marveling at her, curious if she meant only to be polite by asking.

            Then I had the thought that if I had said I did not want her to touch me or even said nothing at all in response, I could not imagine that she would press me any further. That was coyness, I thought, but only for a moment, and then I recognized that this was something more. All my life, people had been pressing up against me, testing my will, seeing if I might say yes to them or simply falter in saying no and land at the same outcome. They would not have cared to know my reasons. That was all the same to them. Here I was stretched out naked, and no doubt my very skin was flushed with desire after what we had done together already this night. Still, she asked my permission to touch me, wanting me to speak for my own desires rather than to give in to hers. I was curious what her remaining desires with me were, and yet she had made me have to wonder what my own were, as well. I found I had no answer being quite unprepared for being asked.

            She could tell the change that had come over me, I was sure of this from her expression as she considered me. Both of her hands came to rest on my body and run over me, even as she bent down to kiss my lips. She worked her hands over me, finding me out. When she touched my breasts, I had to flinch at the intensity of the sensation. She leaned up to look over my face, reading me very closely. She took both my breasts into her hands more fully this time, and the feel made my eyes close and my voice sound. Her mouth came to my throat, and I sank down into the bed, unable to hold myself up.

            My body was practically aching, filled to brimming with the experience of having her before. I was unprepared for how it felt, being touched when I was in such a state. She could tell, of that I was certain, as her hands worked over me in the precise way to make me open myself more to her. I felt something akin to panic rise in my chest, and I held to her, trying to make myself stay calm. I was used to having the upper hand all the time with the lovers I would take. When they got rough, I got rougher. When they moved fast, I went even faster. Now she was being soft. What was I to be? I did not have the upper hand now, I was falling apart at her touch. At one point, her mouth was on my own, her fingers pressing the side of my neck, and she found my pulse and kept her hand there to feel.

            "How your heart is beating," she said with her mouth just above my own.

            "I feel like a woman desperate," I confessed to her.

            "What are you desperate to have?" she asked.

            Now she was finally willing to speak, and I had no words to say. She reached down and let her hand run up my thigh to touch me, watching my face as she did. I made a shudder and a distinct moan even at once. I pressed up into her hands, and she kept both hands and her mouth on my body. When she pressed into me, I nearly thought I would beg. I did not think I could stand her taking me this slow, and she was being so gentle and so patient, even if she was surprisingly steady. I had an near desperate urge to make her rush. Somehow the words to ask her to go quick never formed on my lips.

            Instead, the desperation I felt to make us rush broke inside me. I hardly knew how to do anything other, and I remembered the last time someone had me this way – the only time before. The night I spent with Daniel Marney, he stopped me making things rushed. After we got down onto the bed, I leaned over and took him into my mouth, working the rest of him with my hand. Daniel made a sound of pleasure and moved back some.

            "Charlotte," Daniel said at once, "I won't be able to last for you, if you keeping doing that long."

            He was right. Of course, he was. I was driving him, as I would have any cull, trying to make him come as hard and fast as I could. And I was good. That was always my aim. I meant to make him wet, as well, as that would help me, when he made to press into me. I was used to hiding one intent behind another, getting anything for myself by pretending that it was for my cull. I had confused him, and he assumed I was acting in direct opposition to what I would want. I had to think then. Did I want him to last long? I honestly did not know. I did not know what this was that we were doing. I was not his cull either, and for a moment, I thought he was assuming that I was.

            "You do not need to last long for my sake," I said to him.

            "Are you joking? This is my first chance at making love to you. I intend to make it last as long as I can – for both our sakes and not one over the other," he said.

            I made to move into his lap and bring him inside me. He helped to drag me close. I thought he reached down to help guide himself into me, but he touched between my legs first. The feel of his hand made me brace myself with an arm about his shoulders.

            "Wait," he said. I truly had no idea what to say given that no man had ever said this to me before in my entire life. So I went still. "I want to make certain you're soaked right through first."

            He tipped me back, urging me to lie down on the bed. When I did, and he licked me, until I felt I was halfway in a trance. Only then was he willing to come over me and let me draw him inside me. Even then, he moved slow, watching my face. He pressed carefully, considering my response.

            "Show me what way is best," he said, moving his body in different ways, looking to match my own pleasure. I blinked in astonishment, not knowing myself. He soon found what he was wanting, my own pleasure brought to a sharpened height each time he moved with me, and my hips arching to meet him. Then he held the pace, pressing full into me to a place I could have sworn that no one had ever found before. But then, they were not trying to seek it out, as he was.

            I had never taken my own pleasure with a man this way, and he went on far longer than I would have imagined possible, until I lost all sense of time. When finally, he was beginning to tremble, I brought my hand to his face to find his jaw clenched. I brought his face up to consider his expression, and he could hardly keep his eyes open.

            "Charlotte, I have to come soon," he said, and I would have laughed at his clear disappointment had I not been so overcome. I could only smile at him a little. He kept on a bit longer, and then he was fully shaking and pulled himself away. He made to finish, and I sat up and made him let me. His body quaked all over, and he moaned in a way that in all honestly piqued my envy. If I had been the one entirely in the lead, I could have claimed his response for my own mastery. He had been just as much a part of all this, as I had. Two craftsmen, I had to figure, worked better than one. My own ego being goaded at this had to amuse me. He pulled the sheet over to wipe his face and wipe himself off.

            "Here," he said. He moved back and pulled me into his lap, as if he meant to press into me once more. I realized then I was not mistaken in his intent. I was fully unprepared and braced my hand on his chest, holding him back.

            "What on earth do you mean to do?" I said.

            "You never finished," he said, and he moved into me once more. He pressed hard, right deep where the touch made me most weak. He could not stand to do it the same way as he had before, but he braced himself and pressed firm and quick, while rubbing hard at my pearl. The pleasure came through me as a shock, and I fell back into the bed with my back arched and grasped at both of his wrists. He used his free hand to work one of my nipples between his fingers, moving his hand from one breast to the other.

            My voice was pulled out of me in prolonged moans, and I lasted only minutes that way. He made me come so hard, I gave up cries of pleasure. I had never heard my voice sound that way.   That left me shattered. I was hiding my face, and he came to lie with me and said nothing for a long time.

            He believed we would be together many times after this night, but I could not believe it. For I knew better. Our lives would never be our own. There was no new world, only the bastard children of this one scattered across the globe after centuries of rape. The freedom we had known as we spent that night together – stealing ourselves away and claiming our bodies for our own pleasure – even the memory felt out of place and time, much the same as his vision of the lives we could have.

            This was different tonight with Lady Isabella, though it reminded me of that time with Daniel Marney. I knew quite clear that we were in the here and now. She was not asking me to run away with her. She was fighting beside me, trying to reshape our world, even with the deck being stacked against all of us. At the memory of the night I spent with Daniel, I found a will to let myself find that same shocking pleasure once more, even if it felt like letting go of the one thing I had that was of worth, placing it in someone else's hands, giving over my mastery. She had marveled when I willing placed a hundred pounds into her hands. This was a thousand times more.

            I lay back fully that night, and I gave myself up to Lady Isabella. Soon I was taking in great rushes of breath, and I felt as if a fire were rushing under my skin. The sound of my own voice, shaking with pleasure astonished me a second time in my life. I let her watch me, and she did, seeming to drink in the sight with an endless thirst. At one time, she was sat up with both hands between my legs, one pressing into me with some force and the other running down over me. I looked up to see her watching how my shoulders pressed into the bed, considering the expression upon my face. Her eyes were soft and heavy with her own pleasure in the experience, and her lips were parted.

            When I kept her gaze, she leaned down and placed a kiss in the center of my chest that was rising up towards her, then she kissed her way down my stomach. She was kissing low on my stomach and felt it distinct and clear when I came, hard enough to make me shudder and cry out with my hands gripping the linen. I lay there trying to catch my breath after and found myself wondering who would have heard that and whether they would recognize it as my voice and ask me questions I did not want to answer in the morning. I almost had a swell of pity for the poor fools I had made subject to my talent for provoking lust, now that I had been subject to that skill myself. But it was her, as well. She affected me so. I could hardly put words to why or how. Where I was hard, I found myself soft under her influence. Some part of me was vexed by my willingness with her, but all the rest of me would not hear of it.

            My body shook a little with sheer exhaustion as I sat myself up. She helped to pull me upright and moved in close to kiss me. We held one another and kissed even more now than we had before. I tried not to let myself think this was romance. I was not the type for that sort of thing. There was some promise, some intimacy held in our kissing that I could not deny. I could have taken twenty lovers to my bed, and not one of them would have known me as she had. And she had not intended to have anyone, as she had said, a thought that made me even more disdainful of this world now than I had felt before when she said it.

            She moved after a time to lay properly in the bed, and I dragged the covers up and came to lay beside her. I took her hand, holding it up, considering how long and beautiful her fingers were. I thought of a dozen things to say and none of them seemed right somehow. Finally, I turned to her.

            "Did I live up to my good name?" I asked her with a sly grin, and she laughed a bit. "My infamous name," I said, as if correcting myself.

            "My only consolation in knowing how good you are and not having the words to tell you of it is knowing that you know it, as well, Charlotte Wells," she said. I laughed at that, finding myself unable to disagree. She was well pleased, I could see. I thought of her face at the start, when I first reached out to touch her face, not knowing what she would say or how she would feel.  

            "Good then. I have given the lovers you will have something to live up to," I said and let her see I was pleased with myself.

            "I had not thought I would ever have a single one, let alone the very best one," she admitted, and the sadness was gone from her voice. I kept smiling at that.

            _"_ At a chance of becoming your lover, half of London would fall to their knees, and I would be the first to drop," I said. She closed her eyes and huffed a bit of a laugh at this. "You believe me joking, but I am being quite serious." She reached to touch my face. We looked long at one another, and then she drew me into a kiss. We were quiet together for a while, kissing, both lost in our own minds.  

            "You have done me good," she told me, touching my throat softly and then letting the back of her hand graze down my chest over my heart. "I cannot tell you how much." She was in earnest, considering me closely, wanting me to know. I did know what she meant, and that was precisely what I had intended in trying to seduce her tonight. I came up onto my arm, touched her face, and looked into her eyes.

            "Promise me something, will you?" I said.

            "What?" she asked, clearly in earnest, willing to give me near anything, and no doubt afraid I would ask for something grand that she would be unable or even worse unwilling to give me.

            "If you awake in the night and find that you are ready to go for another round, you will wake me?" I said with great severity.  

            At that, I got to see her laugh fully. Her face was so different, unguarded, no longer hiding any pain, with me here in the night. I laughed with her, my eyes made glistening by our joy. Looking at her this way, I felt I was seeing a vision of who she would become if she ever made herself free. I watched her close, relishing this taste of a victory not as yet won to either of us. I felt glad that here in bed, here in this world where I was the one who held mastery, she found herself already living in this world as it should be.

**Author's Note:**

> Until we get season 3, my headcanon for this ship will be as follows: Isabella sends a lawyer to Charlotte, and Charlotte goes with him, nervous. He has papers laying out terms that if Charlotte will agree to be Isabella's daughter's godmother and take care of her in the case of Isabella's death, Charlotte will immediately be bequeathed ten thousand pounds. Charlotte refuses to sign, getting upset. Then she comes to Isabella one night and tells her to have papers sent naming her godmother to be given the wealth only on Isabella's death or else to take Charlotte on as her courtesan. Isabella is like. What? No. You made me free. I want you to be free, as well, to live as you choose, and I would not trust anyone else to keep my daughter safe as you would. I will not try to win your love for myself after what I did, but why will you not let me do this for you? Being confronted, Charlotte has an existential crisis saying this is who she is, and if she gives up the only life she has, she will be no one. Charlotte ends up weeping, and Isabella puts her arms around her. Charlotte wake up in Isabella's bed with Isabella's arms around her and their hands held. They have breakfast together in silence, and Charlotte comes and kisses Isabella, and they become beautiful lovers with Charlotte newly financially independent. Sir, that is my emotional support headcanon. I totally get the need to keep Charlotte's story from centering on a love interest in the canon, but I happen to be a lifelong fan of Jane Eyre. Who would also trade a thousand Mr. Rochesters for Isabella.
> 
> Anyone who wants to talk about this show, hit me up in the comments or message me on Tumblr (same name). 'Cause I am PROCESSING and still fully overwhelmed by how good this show is.


End file.
